Michael Swickard's new novel about New Mexico

From CNN.com - By Mike Mount - A military appeals court halted the murder case against Maj. Nidal Hasan indefinitely on Friday to sort out issues surrounding a judge's threat to shave the beard the Army psychiatrist grew while awaiting trial in the 2009 Fort Hood killings. The court martial was originally stopped on Wednesday and Hassan was fined $1,000 for remaining bearded, which violates Army regulations. The military judge in the case, U.S. Army Col. Gregory Gross, had previously held that Hassan's beard disrupts the court proceedings and held him in contempt of court five times, the Army said in a news release. Hasan's court-martial had been scheduled to start Monday at Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas, where he is accused of killing 13 people and wounding another 32. Gross, had threatened to have him forcibly shaved unless he got rid of the beard on his own. It was unclear how long the case would be on hold. Hasan had been expected to enter a plea during a Wednesday hearing, but the proceedings were halted by the appellate court. Hasan has previously expressed interest in pleading guilty, but military regulations bar a judge from accepting a guilty plea in a capital case. Hasan is accused of opening fire at the post's processing center, where soldiers were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq, in November 2009. The stay came the same day he was expected to enter a plea to the charges against him. The issue surfaced in June, when a bearded Hasan - who remains in the Army while awaiting trial - appeared at a June hearing. Gross postponed that hearing, found Hasan in contempt of court at a July hearing, fined him $1,000 and warned him he would be shaved by force unless he got rid of it. Read more

NewsNM: Swickard - Better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it. This woman was minutes away from the police but only had seconds to save her life. From alabamas13.com - UPDATE: The suspect, 25-year-old Michael Jacobs, is still at UAB hospital. According to Dora Police Chief John Duchock, they have not yet spoken to him as he is medically unresponsive -- whenever he comes out of sedation, he's combative and has to be sedated once again. WALKER CO. - A Walker County woman was forced to shoot an intruder to protect herself and her children. It happened Tuesday morning on Sellers Hollow Road in the city of Dora. Martha Lewis says she immediately called police and woke up her daughters. Lewis says she gave the intruder several warnings before shooting, but he wouldn't listen. Police say Lewis will not be charged, since she was defending herself. "It wasn't like, oh can I pull the trigger? It was like when should I shoot? When will he be close enough that I know I won't miss him? That's one of the things that was going through my mind," said Lewis. Police say the suspect, 25-year-old Michael Jacobs, is in the hospital in stable condition. He faces burglary and criminal mischief charges as well as possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Read more

From the Huffington Post - by Bonnie Kavoussi - The lottery is ruining your life. Whether you buy lotto tickets once a day or once a year, the lottery is destroying you because it is insidiously convincing you that the only way you can succeed in life is through luck instead of skill. As income inequality has grown, it's become harder to get ahead. But that doesn't mean you should give up on working hard and developing your skill set. On the contrary, the stakes now are higher: all the more reason why you should devote your time to becoming worthy of high pay for doing meaningful work that improves society. You may fall short of your goals. The world is not a machine that produces guaranteed outcomes. But the worst failure is never trying at all. If you work hard enough, you'll be surprised by how much success builds on itself. Once you have enough momentum, it will be hard not to thrive. Buying a lottery ticket is an admission of defeat. "Maybe I'll get lucky," you say to yourself. But you should really be telling yourself that you will try your best, definitely. As technological innovation and outsourcing replace jobs, the economy is rewarding skill and education more than ever. That's because robots and low-paid work abroad can't replace critical thinking. If you feel stuck, you should consider going back to school or working somewhere that will give you valuable experience. If you already have developed a skill set that's in demand, you should consider using it in a way that will pay off -- like applying for a higher-paying job, writing a book, or starting a new company. Just don't buy a lottery ticket. It's effectively a tax on the poor and the desperate. You have almost no chance of winning the lottery. The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot in March, for example, was 1 in 175 million. The odds that you will try your best to achieve your goals, on the other hand, are within your control and can reach 100 percent. Even when people win the lottery, they often go broke because they never planned for a windfall. On the flip side, if you incrementally achieve your goals, you are more likely to win and spend your earnings wisely. It's just like losing weight. People that go on crash diets usually gain back the weight quickly and then some. People that make permanent lifestyle changes, on the other hand, lose weight more slowly but have a significantly better chance of staying thin for life. That's why it's important to make these lifestyle changes: Work hard. Build your skill set. Become more educated. Get to know people in your industry. Find a mentor. And choose a profession that you are passionate about, where you have a good chance of making a good living and succeeding. Get to work and throw away those leftover lottery tickets. They are a string of broken promises from someone that only took advantage of you. Love yourself and make yourself the best person you can be. Read column

Commentary by Jim Spence - Just yesterday I read a weekly newsletter that suggested that contrary to the truly dreary economy and unemployment picture, the public actually believes things are improving.
For the month of July, forty-four states reported what those of us who interact with job creators and job seekers already know. The unemployment rate rose in almost 90 percent of the nation's states. Joblessness is getting worse. While things are not improving, somehow almost magically, the “perception” out there is that things are slowly improving.
There is only one logical explanation for this disconnection from reality. There is a news filter regarding the job market that reduces the magnitude of the "perceptions" of a very depressing unemployment picture. Where does this filter come from? It is deeply embedded in the political biases of television and print media journalists. These notorious biases explain the misinformation that is out there over the airwaves every day and it also explains the remarkable ascension and popularity of Fox News.

As a connoisseur of news I surf all of the channels to get a good sample of what is being fed to the public. For a reasonable discussion, the setting aside of MSNBC is a must. This particular cable channel, which suffers from minuscule ratings, is an unapologetic and grossly biased progressive mouthpiece. It serves the radical fringes of the Democratic Party.

A regular perusal of the other news shows on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg is instructive. It reveals the news filter in place in America. An incredibly pervasive bias that consistently tries to put the best face on a floundering economy is in full force every day. Here are four examples:

1) There is scarce mention of the Obama administration presiding over the worst four year period of job numbers in eighty years. That includes numerous economic downturns. 2) There is scarce mention of the Obama administration’s decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline and all the jobs and economic development it would bring to the nation. 3) There is a complete glossing over of the atrocious number of green energy initiative failures undertaken by the Obama Energy Department. This is a cornerstone of Obama's vision of the future. The list of bankruptcies is staggering but goes mostly unmentioned at these news outlets.

4) Even in news categories unrelated to the economy there is no balance to the reporting. In the name of "transparency" we hear calls for the release of Romney tax returns. These calls are parroted at all of these news outlets virtually every day. However, calls for an end to Obama's bogus "executive privilege" claim and a full release of documents related to the murders of U.S. agents Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata in the Fast and Furious debacle are non-existent on all of these same news shows.
In short, the vast majority of U.S. television networks serve as sympathetic surrogates for the Democratic Party. They gloss over glaringly prolonged economic weakness and avoid any discussions of the consequences of big government and bad public policies. By and large they incorporate the talking points of political operatives in the White House on a daily basis. It is no wonder Fox News dominates the ratings game. It is not so much that Fox favors the GOP, which it does. It is that Fox is the only news outlet that provides a true contrast to what virtually every other television news outlet in America is doing in its so-called reporting every single day. It is for this reason that President Obama and other Democrats enjoy an incredible "perception" advantage.

What do these disadvantages mean for the GOP? Only persistently aggressive face-to-face interaction with other voters by those wanting a change in direction will provide Romney with the help he is going to need to defeat Obama's media Goliath.

CNBC - Unemployment worsened in most states last month. While the July unemployment figure rose a tenth of a point from June to 8.3 percent, the government says 44 states saw their jobless rates increase. These include Nevada, which continues to have the highest jobless rate in the nation, at 12 percent. But when compared to a year ago, the same number of states, 44, have lower unemployment, and even Nevada is in this group.

The state with the most job growth continues to be California, with more than 25,000 jobs added between June and July. Over the last year, the nation's largest state, hit hard by the housing collapse, has had a net gain of a thousand jobs a day.

Still, California has the third highest unemployment rate in the country, at 10.7 percent. "I'm looking for anything," said a woman named Pam at the Verdugo Jobs Center in Glendale, CA. "At my age, no one wants to hire me." She says she has done secretarial work and worked in merchadising. Now she's hoping to become a house cleaner. Read full story here: News New Mexico